Bmi have announced that they intend to cut the amount of domestic flights from Heathrow to help to increase its profitability in the current uncertain financial climate. Instead, BMI will concentrate on building flights in popular European destinations that act as ‘hubs’ for Lufthansa and its partners in the Star Alliance.

Although high-frequency domestic services account for a majority of Bmi flights, they do not bring in as much revenue as international routes. Chief executive Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said Bmi might reduce frequencies on some domestic routes from eight to five daily so it can add more capacity to routes such as Heathrow to Frankfurt or Munich.

The airline has reduced capacity by one fifth already, and has removed 10 aircraft from its fleet and targets £100m in annual cost cuts and continued job losses.

This decision is most likely to benefit rival airline British Airways, which also offer many domestic flights across the UK.